The profit margins associated with the production and marketing of many crops have been generally decreasing for a number of years. This decrease in profit margins has caused many of the producers in the industry to turn to technology for information that facilitates the management of the crop producing land to increase the yield and/or reduce losses due to disease, drought and the like.
Presently, one method for producing crop related information that allows the producers to manage crop producing land is to use remote sensing platforms (e.g., aircraft, satellites, and land vehicles) that are equipped with sensors that allow raw image data to be collected on the agricultural land of interest as the platform passes over the land. Typically, the raw image data is from one or more discrete bands in the electromagnetic spectrum that are capable of yielding agricultural information. For instance, an indication of the amount of chlorophyll in a plant may manifest itself in the “light” sensed from the land of interest in one or a combination of bands. This raw image data for the land of interest is subsequently processed to produce maps that provide the producers with information that can be utilized to manage crop production. For instance, a map that shows chlorophyll concentrations over the area of interest could be used by a producer to identify portions of the land that are under producing relative to other portions of the land and take appropriate action.